The network will also step up its fight against misinformation, reducing the reach of fake posts about the pandemic and deleting posts with conspiracy theories and false claims.
Instagram has been helping and encouraging people a lot during coronavirus times. In addition to the already launched “Stay Home” sticker, meant to encourage quarantine through Stories, the network announced on Tuesday (24) several updates that include new measures to fight misinformation and tools that encourage social distancing.
On the interface side, the new feature is Co-Watching, allowing users to video chat with friends while browsing the timeline together. It can be activated from the Instagram Direct video chat. The feature gives access to saved, liked, and recommended posts, which can be seen by everyone in the conversation.
This isn't the only update catching attention. Besides increasing moderation efforts — and consequently removing more coronavirus-related content from the timeline — and rolling out the “Stay Home” sticker, Instagram posted on its official blog that it will add an alert in the search feature to help connect users with WHO resources.
The company also stated that it will reduce the reach of posts about the pandemic that don't meet the established criteria. The social network's spokesperson said that “If posts are rated false by fact-checkers, we will remove them from hashtag and Explore pages,” in addition to confirming that false claims and conspiracy theories will be deleted from the platform.
These Instagram measures are just some of the latest among many others being rolled out by Facebook across its networks during coronavirus times. Besides the photo app, the company has also launched a division to fight fake news on WhatsApp and an information hub on Facebook itself.
